Google to launch anti-misinformation project in India

Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary is launching a new anti-misinformation project in India which will focus on preventing misleading information that has been blamed for fuelling violence. The initiative will use prebunking videos circulated on the company’s YouTube platform and other social media sites.

Prebunking involves flagging videos and specific disinformation much before their dissemination. The experiment will reportedly involve three vernacular languages, namely Hindi, Marathi and Bengali and will cover diverse sections of the country.

Jigsaw will produce five videos in three different languages in collaboration with the Alfred Landecker Foundation, a pro-democracy organization based in Germany, the philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network India, and a number of smaller regional partners.

After watching the videos, viewers will be asked to fill in a short multiple-choice questionnaire, designed to gauge what they have learned about misinformation. The company's recent research suggested viewers were 5% more likely to identify misinformation after watching such videos.

Like other countries, misinformation spreads rapidly across India, mostly through social media, creating political and religious tensions. Indian government officials have called on tech companies such as Google, Meta, and Twitter to take stronger action against the spread of fake news. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has repeatedly summoned extraordinary powers to block YouTube channels, and some Twitter and Facebook accounts, allegedly used to spread harmful misinformation.

The Indian initiative will focus on issues that resonate in the country. Beth Goldberg, Jigsaw’s head of research and development, said, “By forewarning individuals and equipping them to spot and refute misleading arguments, they gain resilience to being misled in the future.”